{{EngvarB|date=November 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}} '''Sir Henry Saxon Tate, 5th Baronet''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CBE}} (28 November 1931 – 11 July 2012) was an English businessman particularly associated with the family sugar business Tate & Lyle, with the Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland, and the London Futures and Options Exchange.
==Early life== He was the son of Lt-Col Sir Henry Tate, 4th Bt and Lilian Nairne Gregson-Ellis,<ref name="Peerage">{{cite web|title=Sir Henry Saxon Tate, 5th Bt|url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p23280.htm|website=The Peerage|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> and was born on the dining room table of his grandfather the 3rd Baronet's house in Park Lane, London,<ref name="DTobit">{{cite news|title=Sir Saxon Tate, Bt|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/finance-obituaries/9523685/Sir-Saxon-Tate-Bt.html|accessdate=25 August 2016|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=5 September 2012}}</ref> taking his Christian name from his maternal grandfather, Saxon Gregson-Ellis.
Saxon Tate went to Eton College, did national service in the Life Guards, and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford before abandoning his studies to start work at Tate & Lyle.<ref name="DTobit" /><ref name="OToday">{{cite web|title=Obituaries 2012|url=http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/news/obituaries%202012|website=Oxford Today, 4 October 2013|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> He joined the company in 1952, served his apprenticeship in Liverpool at the company's Love Lane refinery (one of the last of the Tate family to do so),<ref name="Noon">{{cite web|last1=Noon|first1=Ron|title=The death of Saxon Tate & one of the last of the Tates to serve an apprenticeship in Love Lane|url=http://www.lovelanelives.com/index.php/blog/entry/the_death_of_saxon_tate_one_of_the_last_of_the_tates_to_serve_an_apprentics|website=Love Lane Lives|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> and joined the board in 1956.<ref name="DTobit" />
==Tate and Lyle career== From the mid-1960s Tate reorganised a Canadian subsidiary, Redpath Industries, before returning to the UK in 1973 enthused about American management methods, but also aware of rising competition from artificial sweeteners.<ref name="OConnell">{{cite book|last1=O'Connell|first1=Sanjida|title=Sugar: The Grass that Changed the World|date=2012|publisher=Random House|location=London|isbn=9781448132843}}</ref>
He chaired a triumvirate executive committee when British membership of the European Economic Community threatened Tate & Lyle's core business, with quotas imposed from Brussels favouring domestic sugar beet producers over imported cane refiners such as Tate & Lyle.<ref name="DTobit" /> As a result, the company began to diversify into related fields of commodity trading, transport and engineering, and in 1976, it acquired competing cane sugar refiner Manbré & Garton.<ref name="DTobit" />
By this stage, Saxon Tate was managing director of Tate & Lyle, but his attempts to diversify the business and introduce modern management methods were only partly successful<ref name=OToday /> and he was eventually succeeded in 1980 by one of his own recruits, Canadian Neil Shaw. Tate served as vice-chairman until 1982 and as a director until April 1999.<ref name="DTobit" /><ref name="AnnRep">{{cite web|title=Tate & Lyle Annual Report, 1997–98|url=https://bib.kuleuven.be/files/ebib/jaarverslagen/TateLyle_1997-98.pdf|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref>
==Later career== Tate served for three years as chief executive of the Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland, successor to the Northern Ireland Development Agency. He then chaired the London Commodity Exchange. This had traditionally traded in sugar, coffee and cocoa but, at Tate's instigation, expanded and rebranded to become the London Futures and Options Exchange. In the 1991 New Year Honours, Tate was appointed a CBE.<ref>United Kingdom list:{{London Gazette |issue=52382 |date=28 December 1990 |pages=1–28 |supp=y }}, see p.9.</ref> However, the introduction of real-estate futures contracts in 1991 led to a scandal when it was discovered that trading volumes had been artificially boosted, and in October Tate resigned alongside the executive responsible, Mark Blundell.<ref name="DTobit" /><ref name="NYT">{{cite news|title=Resignations in London|work=The New York Times|date=7 October 1991}}</ref> Today, the Exchange is known as the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange.
Tate also chaired the Economic League in the late 1970s,<ref name="Spies">{{cite book|last1=Hughes|first1=Mike|title=Spies at Work|date=1994|url=http://www.1in12.com/publications/library/spies/chap9.htm|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> and after its demise in 1993 became a non-executive director of one of its successors, CAPRiM.<ref name="IER">{{cite web|title=Former Economic League employee confirms meetings with police, a govt minister and trade union leaders|date=13 February 2013 |url=http://www.ier.org.uk/news/former-economic-league-employee-confirms-meetings-police-govt-minister-and-trade-union-leaders|publisher=Institute of Employment Rights|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref>
==Family life== Saxon Tate married twice. His first marriage, in 1953, to Sheila Robertson, produced four sons, but was dissolved in 1975. That same year, Tate married Virginia Sturm.<ref name="DTobit" /> The second Lady Tate founded the Tate recruitment agency.<ref>{{cite web |title=About Tate |url=https://www.tate.co.uk/about-tate-old/about-tate-old |website=Tate |access-date=19 September 2021}}</ref> He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1994.
He lived for some years in Sychdyn in Flintshire, north Wales,<ref name="Noreus">{{cite web|title=Down at the bottom of the vegetable garden you'll find… solar panels|url=http://www.noreus.co.uk/down-at-the-bottom-of-the-vegetable-garden-youll-find-solar-panels/|website=Noreus|date=22 April 2012 |accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> and had a London residence in Cleaver Square in Kennington,<ref name="Peerage" /><ref name="Cleaver">{{cite web|title=Cleaver Square residents association AGM|url=http://cleaversquare.org/resources/Residents%20Assoc%20AGM%20minutes%20Nov%2012.pdf|publisher=CleaverSquare.org|accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> before spending his retirement years mainly in the Algarve, Portugal,<ref name=OToday /> where he died on 11 July 2012.<ref name="PNews">{{cite web|title=Sir Henry Saxon Tate, 5th Baronet (1931–2012)|url=http://peeragenews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/sir-henry-saxon-tate-5th-baronet-1931.html|website=Peerage News|date=20 July 2012 |accessdate=25 August 2016}}</ref> His eldest son, Edward, born in 1966, inherited the title.
==References== {{reflist}} {{s-start}} {{s-reg|uk-bt}} {{s-bef|before=Henry Tate}} {{s-ttl|title=Baronet<br />'''(of Park Hill)''' | years=1994–2012}} {{s-aft|after=Edward Tate}} {{s-end}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Tate, Saxon}} Category:1931 births Category:2012 deaths Category:People educated at Eton College Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Tate & Lyle people Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom